This week, we turn, with all due obeisance, to that terrible creature, The Waiter. He or she has the power to make or break a meal – get on the right side of one, and you'll be showered with more petit fours and complementary digestifs than you can cram in a good-sized handbag. Get it wrong, and you can count yourself lucky if your order arrives at all. But it's not always easy: as our army of cleaners, au pairs and personal trainers would testify, a crushing fear of appearing rude surely makes the British the most difficult people to serve in the world.

Nowhere is this more obvious than at the restaurant table; we flush scarlet when the maitre d' pulls out our chairs, huffily insist on pouring our own wine and can be seen guiltily eradicating traces of naan before the waiter can reach them with his dinky little crumber. But these feeble attempts to keep the staff happy have exactly the opposite effect, according to America's queen of manners, Amy Vanderbilt:

"Any good restaurant appreciates a customer who understands the niceties of dining – and exacts good service. I suspect they secretly despise the man, especially, who will accept any sloppy sort of service and poor seating as good enough because he is intimidated by the atmosphere of expensive chic in which he finds himself."

Now, I'm loth to offend Kate, but frankly my only interest in her is in connection to my lunch – if I wanted to chat to her, then I would have reserved an extra space at the table. Understandably, my lacklustre response does not put Kate in a good mood, and she promptly flounces off to 'forget' my drinks. Maybe I should have asked about her holiday after all.

Once you're past the introductions, then there's all the little awkward moments that come with being danced attendance on – something that once, of course, came as naturally to the British as docking the housemaid's pay for dropping an egg, or making someone else warm the lavatory seat on cold mornings.

There's also, so I'm told, the embarrassing bit in a certain class of establishment where they drape the napkin over your lap with some little silver tongs – so intimate! – and you have to keep on talking as if people are always fussing around your crotch (which they're not, for the record). Or that face you have to make when tasting the wine: the, 'I know it's fine, and I'm aware you're a better judge than me anyway, what with being a professional sommelier and all, but tradition demands I slurp it noisily through my teeth so I'm damn well going to do it' expression – which is really quite difficult to master while simultaneously nodding and keeping your mouth shut. Just remember to swallow before you open it to give your approval.

Frankly, the whole experience of being waited on is a minefield – one false move and you'll never get a window table in this joint again. So what's the correct response to 'how was your food?' if, in fact, it was just so-so? Is marching up to a waiter with your credit card acceptable if they've been avoiding your increasingly desperate gaze for over 10 minutes? And why, if they haven't got a clue what's in spaghetti all'amatriciana, do I always end up apologising for asking? What, in short, are the real secrets of wooing a waiter?